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Employment, Insurance, and Other Financial Issues —

Just wondering how people are coping with the constant threat to our health care coverage due to our pre-existing conditions. I've always believed that you need to take action when you're feeling stressed and threatened and this health insurance issue is driving me crazy. I have contacted my senators but both of them are on the same page with me. When I tried to contact the moderate "on the fence" GOPs, they don't accept email from people outside of their state. It just seems so out of our control right now and I hate that feeling. Any thoughts or ideas?

Yep, I'm not so much concerned for myself but for everyone, especially the folks on this site. We ALL have a scary pre-existing condition, not to mention staggering medical bills. Personally, I will be eligible for Medicare in a few months so if Congress manages not to decimate that program I should be more or less okay. Meanwhile I'm paying through the nose for COBRA for those few months, but given the price of some of these drugs we all take, going without insurance is not an option. The folks I fear for are the ones who don't have the options I have and are dependent on either Medicaid or an ACA plan. I don't know what will happen, and I find it discouraging that we live in a country that would willfully just let people die for the simple inability to pay for treatment.

I live in Texas so contacting my Senators is a colossal waste of time, and time is a precious commodity to me, nor do I need the aggravation of getting their obsequious replies trying to justify their positions. So fight on there, sister, for all of us.

Thanks for weighing in. Am I wrong in my understanding that if ACA is repealed then, anyone with a pre-existing condition could be affected or is it just those who don't have private or employer provided insurance. It is all quite confusing.

You are correct, it's all quite confusing. But some of the consumer protections of the ACA are the ability to keep kids on your coverage until age 26, removing annual and lifetime coverage caps, and banning the insurance company practice of charging higher premiums or denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Those are protections that apply to all insurance plans, including those group plans provided by employers. Repealing the ACA would remove those protections, even for those with employer provided plans, with the exception of members of Congress, of course.

Yes I'm scared and there's nothing I can do about it. I work for myself so I buy insurance directly, and I'm twenty years from Social Security. With the new Cruz amendment the protections for people with pre-existing conditions are gone (because it will again separate out the sick from the healthy, making insurance costs for sick people skyrocket), I don't think people realize that. Estimates I've seen for people similar to me would be monthly premiums around $10,000. Which obviously means no insurance. So no follow-ups, no tests, nothing. And if it comes back, no treatment. And yes lifetime/annual limits could be back depending on whether your state decides to bring it back.

If Republicans get their way, everybody with a pre-existing condition, who is not being treated through employer or SS, will be royally screwed. Good news, hopefully, is that if one more Repub refuses to support the death bill, McConnell has to, GASP, work with the Democrats. Wow, this is what our government has come to!

The problem is, though, they can lose 2, and we already know who those 2 are and McConnell will let them vote no, but it's extremely unlikely another senator will step up to be the vote that kills it. A bunch of them deciding to vote no is our only chance, and unfortunately that's probably not going to happen

I heard that there were 10 Republican senators that were on the fence about this. People that are represented by those senators should call them up. I live in Illinois, and both of our senators are Democratic, but one of my sisters lives in Louisiana, and one of the senators there is on the fence. I should email her to call him up. Senator Cassidy is a doctor from Baton Rouge, and I asked my sister once, and she said he is definitely conservative, but she said at least he has treated some uninsured patients, whereas the guy in charge of the HHS, Secretary Price has not treated any uninsured patients for years. I've got a feeling that this latest bill will not pass the senate. There are some people like Paul and Cruiz that will never give in. I am just worried how much the insurance premiums on the marketplace will go up in January if we still have Obamacare. The insurance companies had to submit their plans for next year a few months ago, not even knowing if the marketplace will still be in existence in January.

The states where Republican governors have utilized the Medicaid expansion are particularly important. Those governors don't want the decimation of Medicaid, part and parcel of this hideous plan, and are pressuring their Republican senators to vote NO. I know Nevada and Ohio are two of those states. I think Alaska too, and there are probably others. People who don't like this plan and live in any of these places, should start calling their Senators asap!

Louisiana originally did not expand medicaid. They had a Republican governor who did not like being told what to do. He was anti taxes too. Louisiana had one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the country, and the state representatives tried to raise it something like 3 cents a pack, and he vetoed the bill. Due to term limits Bobbie Jindahl could not run for office again. They now have a Democratic governor who decided that the state should expand medicaid, and they did. There were just tons of people in the state that did not have insurance that were using the ER, and he decided they had to expand medicaid.

I worry about people like our son, who is too old to be on our policy, freelances writing comedy and running tech for small theaters, and has both asthma that has required a few trips to the ER and an inpatient admission and is on maintenance therapy for depression. Before the ACA, we bought him a what later became a “bronze” plan, with very high deductible and co-pays. We pay it all for him because we can and he can’t. If the ACA is repealed, he will be left high & dry. He lacks the aptitude necessary to retrain for any jobs that are in demand and would provide benefits.

When I was diagnosed, had surgery and radiation, I was not yet old enough for Medicare. Because of the ACA, our policy covered all of my expenses. All I paid for was parking and gas. And when I read the stories here of patients too young for Medicare, not poor enough for Medicaid and unable to pay high premiums and deductibles, I shudder. Yes, premiums are high under the ACA, but before that there were no restrictions what insurers could charge nor those conditions they could refuse to cover or even which patients they could refuse to insure at any cost for any future unrelated conditions. When annual treatment costs can run into the six figures, the specter of reinstating annual and lifetime caps is horrifying.

McCain is having surgery and will do no legislative work next week. So, that makes a definite 3 not voting yay, thereby killing the bill. Except that McConnell now plans to delay the vote until McCain gets back. This gives more time for the CBO score to come out and sink in (it's expected to be worse than the last one, which was horrible). Lots of time left to kill this bill, and no ability for McConnell to sneak it to a vote. Thanks for the links elise!

I am scared to death for all. We know how expensive cancer is (my treatment cost for one year for surgery, chemo, rads was $170,000+) not to mention the continuing medication and monitoring for at least 5 years, nowdays pushing towards 10. My son has Crohn's disease since the age of 6. He is 20 and has had one in-patient surgery, two outpatient, two hospital admissions, and his current infusion treatment costs over $10,000 every 8 weeks. In addition he has to see the specialist at least 3 times a year and do labs that cost over $600. Talk about being kicked into an expensive insurance pool. With my employer provided insurance today, he would frequently reach $5000 out of pocket costs - with both of us sick now - $10,000. How would a 20 year old, or a 26 year old should he be able to stay on my insurance - pay for that with a more expensive, worse policy?

@ sfar Last week I was able to use the website forms to send messages to several moderates GOP Senators, even though I don't live in those states. As others have said, you can call. I've heard calling it better. You can always fib and say you live in a certain city in that state (with all the deceit coming out of the WH, this doesn't seem so bad). Last fall, I spoke to a health insurance lawyer/advocate and he said that personal stories matter, you never know what will sway people. This guy also said that, for better or worse, cancer strikes a special fear in people, so as cancer survivors, we can speak loud and clear. (FWIW, 1 in 3 Americans will get cancer in their lifetime. You can mention that to the staffer who answers the phone. If they don't know any survivors now, it's just a matter of time).

If you want to target your message, The Washington Post lists the concerns of each senator. You can emphasize that.

What else can you do? Talk to friends and family whoyou live in those states (or post a request on FB?) and ask them to call their Senators. I asked my dad that if I wrote letters from him, would he sign and mail them. (he did). You can donate to political and obbying orgs.

FWIW, if you want more things to worry about, I believe this Senate plan allow insurance companies (including employer ones) to go back to annual and lifetime caps. Heath Secretary Price even said that the insurance companies should "dust off" their playbooks from pre-ACA days, so all the bad stories from before will come back again. ;( We have to stop this now.

I hate to exploit the political aspect of any cancer patient, but should we make noise about John McCain's condition right now? He's waiting for the result of the pathology report and there are concerns his blood clot may actually be cancer. Obviously, I hope it's not. But as a cancer survivor, these are the worries we have every time there is a mysterious new symptom. I'm glad he had access to the Mayo Clinic docs, and ALL people with pre-existing conditions need access to good doctors. The Cruz amendment effectively creates high-risk pools. The plan is so bad, even the insurance companies issued a scathing rebuke. Should we be emphasizing that?

Yes, the Bastards'* Care-Ruining Act is dead, with two more Senators saying they’d have been “nays.” But those two (Mike Lee & Jerry Moran) are against it because it isn’t draconian enough. To his credit, Moran also decried the tactic of going behind closed doors without public hearings. So McConnell says he will scrap the “replace” part and just pass a bill to completely repeal the ACA, which repeal would take effect two years after passage—presumably with the GOP coming up with a replacement sufficiently “outstanding” to satisfy Trump. Pundits predict it would merely be an adoption, in the Senate’s own language, of the House version that Trump first celebrated but later called “mean.” (Of course, he might not consider “mean” a pejorative).

It ain’t over—I don’t hear a Brunhilde doing vocal warmups in the wings.

"Any proposals for a "clean repeal" of the Affordable Care Act have been unpopular in both parties, and it would take 60 votes in the Senate for an outright repeal. Republicans in that chamber hold a 52-seat majority.

It's unclear when McConnell plans to hold a vote for the delayed repeal-and-replace, but the Senate is expected to remain in session until Aug. 11 before going on a recess."

Right now I think McConnell is punting until after the 2018 elections. Stringing the base along so it looks like they, the Republicans, are actually doing something. Still it is very nerve-racking to have these endless threats to our health care system thrown out there.

Murkowski called for Republicans to develop a new proposal in committees, a step that has thus far been skipped by GOP leadership in the chamber.

"I think what has to happen is the Republicans have to admit that some of the things in the ACA, we actually liked, and the Democrats have to admit that some of the things they voted for in the ACA are broken and need to be fixed," Murkowski told reporters.